In terms of numbers, it was a lousy Labor Day weekend, actually one of the worst in the past few years. It was supposed to belong to The Transporter Refueled, but the replacement of Jason Statham with Ed Skrein did not bring much luck and the new installment of the franchise ended its first week of release just above $7 million, surprisingly beaten even by
A Walk in the Woods, starring Robert Redford, Nick Nolte and Emma Thompson which took $8 million and third place. On the domestic front, Labor Day weekend instead turned out to be a contest between two holdovers: Straight Outta Compton, in its third week of release, and War Room, in its second. The latter, a Christian drama fueled largely by African-American audiences barely prevailed, with revenues of just over $9 million and a total so far of
$25 million.
It was a modest ending for what will, on the other hand, be remembered as the extraordinary summer of 2015, with domestic revenues totaling $4.5 billion. And as car chases and very special special effects fade away and the Venice and the Toronto Film Festivals mark the official start of the of the awards season with its “serious” and adult movies, a few extra records were broken. Jurassic World crossed the $1 billion mark at the overseas box office, joining a very exclusive club that, up to April of this year, had only two members: James Cameron’s Avatar and Titanic. Then came Furious 7, but if we add domestic revenues to the ones generated overseas the franchise originated by Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg
is actually the third film of all times (not accounting for inflation). Japan, where it got
$63 million so far, is its latest major market and there is not room to go much further. But
as it broke yet another record, Universal cannot complain: the studio crossed the $6 billion mark in global box office, another milestone in an extraordinary year that has included such diverse titles as 50 Shades of Grey, Furious 7, Minions, Amy Schumer’s Trainwreck and the aforementioned Straight Outta Compton which has just crossed the domestic mark of
$150 million. It also added $8 million from overseas, debuting at number one in Australia and maintaining the top spot in both Germany and the UK.
There was a major milestone for another film that has been around for a while: Tom Cruise’s’ Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. It beat Transporter Refueled in the domestic charts to gain the number 4 spot and has now reached the half billion dollar mark globally. It still has to open in China, a territory which, at the moment, is fueling the unexpected success of Terminator: Genisys. China alone accounts for $108 million of that film’s revenue so far, worldwide its total is now close to $450 million. Not so bad for a film whose modest domestic results had cast doubts on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dream of resuming his role as a movie star. Perhaps he is back after all … or however you say that in Mandarin.
Lorenzo Soria